“Instant play” lottery tickets are well known in the art. These tickets typically relate to a game theme and include a scratch-off layer or coating (e.g., a removable latex coating) that covers the play indicia printed on the ticket. After purchasing a ticket, a player scratches off the coating and is instantly presented with an indication as to whether the ticket is a winning ticket.
Unfortunately, the scratch-off lottery games tempt certain unscrupulous individuals to “prescreen” tickets to determine which tickets are winners. For example, such individuals look for ways to covertly determine the play indicia under the scratch-off layer without leaving an indication that the ticket has been tampered with. If a store clerk or other individual can determine a winning ticket in this manner, he can easily remove the ticket from sale to the general public for later “purchase” by an accomplice. Such events seriously degrade the integrity and public perception of the lottery game as a fair game of chance.
One approach to overcoming the problem of prescreening of unsold tickets is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,405. This patent describes a system and method for electronic verification of tickets. Electronic circuits are printed on the tickets, for example as a component of the scratch-off coating, and any attempt to alter the coating in order to determine the underlying play indicia results in a change in the electronic signature of the ticket. A verification machine is used to apply an excitation signal to the ticket, and a validation circuit is used to determine if the returned signal is a valid signal.
Despite efforts to prevent it, fraudulent prescreening of tickets is still a problem in the industry. The present invention relates to a novel approach of detecting whether attempts have been made to prescreen tickets by focusing on whether the scratch-off material covering the play indicia or security codes has been tampered with.